Let math settle debates

June 04, 2006|JASON KELLY

With the disclaimer that conclusions reached below involve attempted mathematics -- the Tribune regrets the errors -- proceed with caution into the case of Chris Thomas vs. Chris Quinn. Debating the relative merits of athletes arouses passion, as acknowledged by the authors of the dispassionate (with the exception of an avowed Yankee hatred) new book "The Wages of Wins." Water coolers boil over with heated discussions. Consider this book's analytical variation on that intensity of opinion a bracing splash of cold, hard facts. It adds painstaking equations to the conversation. As exciting as that sounds, "The Wages of Wins" makes a convincing case for the economic principles it applies to abstract questions like: Who's better, Chris Thomas or Chris Quinn? Although "regression analysis" sounds like a study of Notre Dame basketball, 2004-present, the authors didn't include the former Irish points guards in their explanatory examples. They did describe in detail a new and improved way to rank basketball players in their pursuit of the ultimate goal -- winning games. All an amateur mathematician has to do is plug in the statistics to settle what generations of barroom brawls could not. Who's better? Calculating the "Win Score" for a basketball player might not be as satisfying as punching the guy going on about Tim Duncan this or Elton Brand that, but it has a certain statistical civility. And statistics, especially in the hands of the three economists who wrote "The Wages of Wins", tell a more complete story than many fans might admit. Even the most devoted spectators or (cough) "expert" (cough) sports reporters who never miss a game can see only so much with the naked eye. Flickers of highlights from around the country fill the peripheral vision, but a gaping blind spot remains. Statistics alone bring that blurry picture into focus. David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt and Stacey L. Brook set out to produce clarity through numbers, to prove or disprove the gut feelings and entrenched impressions observers form. Their bottom line establishes how many wins an individual player produces. Kevin Garnett's accumulation of wins surpasses everybody in the NBA over the last decade. Allen Iverson, meanwhile, produces wins at a rate well below his superstar status. Scoring efficiency, as opposed to points alone, and a capacity to do many things well yield the best results. Most telling about the validity of the formula is an evaluation of the 2003-04 NBA season. They took the sum of wins the individual players on each team produced, based on their measurement, and compared that to the team's actual win total. New York's players combined for 37.1 wins by "The Wages of Wins" method. Those Knicks won 39 games. On average, the authors were off by 1.67 wins per team. It adds up. So, in the matter of Chris Thomas vs. Chris Quinn, who's better? Each played more than 120 games in their careers, though Thomas played 1,000 more minutes, the equivalent of 50 games. Keeping that introductory disclaimer about math in mind, Thomas compiled a career "Win Score" of 723.5 using the book's formula. Quinn's total was 660. On a per-minute basis, Quinn had the slight edge at 0.17 to 0.15 for Thomas. To put that in perspective, the average NBA guard had a 0.13 per-minute "Win Score" over a decade analyzed in the book. By that standard, both Quinn and Thomas were above average guards at Notre Dame. Their respective senior years seemed to offer the best basis for comparison, since they played comparable minutes and roles on the team. Thomas stayed at his career average with a 0.15 per-minute "Win Score." Quinn improved to 0.18. Any brain lacking the wiring to process this stuff -- present company included -- should be addled enough by now to appreciate the simple bottom line: Victories produced. Quinn produced 10.67 wins as a senior, heavy lifting for a team that finished with 16. Thomas accounted for 8.94 wins his senior season, more than half of Notre Dame's 17. For their careers, Thomas compiled 41.47 wins the economic (if not always economical) way and Quinn contributed 29.58 to Notre Dame's cause. Over four years, Thomas produced more. In the senior anchor leg, after taking the baton from the departed Thomas, Quinn's win total exceeded his more celebrated predecessor's. Like any worthy economic model, like any good point guard for that matter, the basketball evaluation tool in "The Wages of Wins" uses both hands. On the one hand, on the other hand ... Let the debates rage on, but evidence like this eliminates a lot of reasonable doubt about the true measure of basketball greatness -- as long as somebody else does the math. It took a couple hundred pages, and almost as much scrap paper, but the statistical conclusion to the Thomas-Quinn debate sounds about right.